Evermore receives £20m investment
Foresight Group and the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) have invested £20 million (€23 million) into the construction of the Evermore Renewable Energy plant.
The facility, to be built on 10 acres of land in Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland, will burn around 110,000 tonnes per year of wood for the generation of 15MWe of combined heat and power (CHP). The feedstock will be supplied under a long-term fuel supply contract from Stobart Biomass.
The electricity will be supplied to the national grid and the heat will be used by an integrated wood drying facility, supplying fuel for new biomass boilers within Northern Ireland.
The Evermore project is expected to become operational in 2015 when it will become the largest renewable energy plant in Northern Ireland. It will have a lifespan of around 20 years, during which time it will generate electricity for more than 25,000 homes a year and save 2 million tonnes of wood from going to landfill. It is expected to slash GHG emissions by around 3.7 million tonnes.
The Foresight managed fund – UK Waste Resources and Energy Fund, in which GIB is the cornerstone investor – made the investment, which is the first GIB funded project in Northern Ireland.
Foresight has sourced co-investment from GCP Infrastructure Fund and contractor BWSC and worked alongside Investec Bank and Eksport Kredit Fonden in structuring and financing the project.
Shaun Kingsbury, CEO of UK Green Investment Bank, says: 'This announcement will substantially increase Northern Ireland's renewable energy capacity. Not only will the project save the same amount of carbon as taking around 77,000 cars off the road, it will also make use of over 2 million tonnes of wood – a valuable energy resource that would otherwise have gone to landfill.'
Evermore's co-founders, Ciaran and Stephen Devine, comment: 'We are making a serious commitment to the Northern Ireland energy market and we hope it is a great place to do business so that further inward investment will follow.'
This investment is part of a total £81 million required to build the Evermore Renewable Energy CHP plant.
